Responsible Drinking

I have done a plethora of research on the topic of ‘excessive drinking’ over the past 15 years, and what I have found is that the debate rages on between those who believe that problem drinking can be moderated to responsible drinking and those who believe it cannot. The debate seems to be exacerbated by fuzzy definitions: problem drinking, alcohol abuse, alcohol dependency, alcoholism, alcoholic, disease, genetics, etc. This series is not about trying to define any of these or to set myself up as the expert on alcohol problems. It is not my intent to get people to abandon traditional approaches, or to entice someone who has maintained abstinence to ‘try drinking again’. If abstinence is your goal, then this series is not for you. If you believe that you are an alcoholic and that alcoholics can never drink again – this is not for you. If you believe alcoholism is a disease, this is not for you. This series is for people who feel they drink too much and want to learn to drink responsibly. Before watching these videos I want it to be clear that you are doing so at your own risk. By watching these videos, you have agreed to take full responsibility for how youuse the information and strategies. This series is developed for the express purpose of helping you only if you have already decided before-hand that learning to drink responsibly is your goal. ﻿

Responsible Drinking 1 - Introduction﻿

In my experience, there are a whole lot of folks who are justnotinterested in abstinence, they are interested in learning to drink responsibly. In my book learning to drink responsibly is the greater of the two achievements. It is much more satisfying to learn how to drink 3-4 beers and ‘be done’, than it is to simply stick to the idea of ‘it has to be zero, because if I have one I can’t stop’. ﻿

Responsible Drinking 2 - Brad﻿

The goal of this series is to give you, the viewer, an in-depth look at my strategies for helping a problem drinker to learn how to drink responsibly, or as we in the business know it – practice low-risk drinking. In order to do that I want to tell you about a typical client of mine.﻿

Responsible Drinking 3 - Definition

The first step in the process it to define ‘responsible drinking’.So just what the heck is responsible drinking?The answer: “It really depends.”It depends on your objective. In my book, responsible drinking is intentionally staying below the legal limit of 0.08 and NEVER operating a motor vehicle (or a boat, or anything else like that activity) after having even 1 drink.﻿

Responsible Drinking 4 - Setting The Intention

To succeed at this we need to set a good intention. Visualizing and mentally rehearsing made me good at the game of baseball. Whether we are trying to be good at baseball or drinking responsibly, both benefit greatly from visualization and mental rehearsal.﻿

Responsible Drinking 5 - Putting The Intention Into Play

The exercises described in this segment fire off millions of additional neurons in the brain. We are literally recruiting massive areas in the brain, dedicated to audio and visual processing, and putting them to work in the effort of carrying out the intention of drinking responsibly.﻿

Responsible Drinking 6 - Debriefing

One of the important elements of this process is debriefing an actual attempt. From the de-briefing process we can learn a lot about what programming needs to be changed. Debriefing, especially after a failed attempt, is invaluable at discovering our rogue programming.﻿

Responsible Drinking 7 - Cognitive Restructuring

In the debriefing process we uncover what I call intention-killing thoughts. These thoughts must be restructured in order to build a new program in the brain that will house a responsible drinking regimen. This is the heart and soul of the process of CBT.﻿

Responsible Drinking 8 - Mutual Exclusivity

It is critical that the kind of thoughts we build for the new program are mutually exclusive in nature to the old default thoughts. This is the only way the brain can effectively choose the correct thinking – that is just how the brain works.﻿

Responsible Drinking 9 - Six Months Later

At six months into the process, Brad has done a great job of improving his responsible drinking tactics. He still has a ways to go, but the key is on steady improvement – not pass/fail.﻿

Responsible Drinking 10 - Five Years Later

There is over-whelming evidence supporting cognitive behavioral strategies to create responsible drinking patterns. It only makes sense that when we remove the pass/fail dichotomy, we begin to make progress. Welcome aboard!﻿